


Status Update

by Shay_Moonsilk



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, M/M, Making the relationship official on social media, Office drama, Other, Social Media, workplace politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:41:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26956006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shay_Moonsilk/pseuds/Shay_Moonsilk
Summary: Crowley has an Instagram account (verified, of course). Weeks after Armageddon was supposed to happen, he posts a selfie that becomes the ultimate office gossip on either side of the celestial plane.Get your sustainable refillable water bottle, and gather around the Holy Water Cooler. There's never been celestial gossip this good.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Beelzebub/Gabriel (Good Omens), Gabriel & Sandalphon (Good Omens), Hastur/Ligur (Good Omens), Michael & Uriel (Good Omens), One-sided Michael/Ligur
Comments: 22
Kudos: 292





	Status Update

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hikaru9](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hikaru9/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Extra for Kinks4Kindness](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/699205) by Hikaruaino. 



> This is heavily (entirely) inspired by Hikaru9's art! I've included the link, I encourage you to check it out!

Crowley’s last commendation for Bad Job Performance (which, when one is a demon, is the best kind of review for job performance) came in the 90’s, for the idea of selfies. What made this particular commendation so different from his others was that this was for something that he actually did. 

Another difference this had with his part job performance was that Hell actually understood the impact, unlike the M25. Selfies were all about vanity and pride. If someone was taking a selfie, they were too wrapped up in their own life to care about who they were speaking to. If a group of friends took a selfie and left out someone in their group, they were inspiring wrath and cruelty. If someone posted a bad selfie, that would lead to embarrassment. If someone _didn’t_ post a selfie, they were judged. There was truly no way to win. 

It was beautiful. Satan had loved it. 

The Demon Crowley embraced social media. He had a Facebook account back when one needed a university email to join. His was the first Twitter account to become verified. Even back when everyone was friends with Tom - he was one of the first. Social media was the easiest way for him to spread low-grade evil. All he had to do was spend an hour posting something ridiculous on Reddit, spread a worldwide level of tarnish on souls, and then he could move on to better uses of his time. This usually involved getting drunk with a certain angel in Soho.

Crowley liked to think that he had invented the concept of working from home - he did it before everyone else, after all. Of course now he didn’t have to work from anywhere. If he wanted to spread some mischief, that was his business and his alone. No reports required anymore. If Downstairs wanted to get some humans, sooner or later they would learn the importance of innovation, but that wasn’t his job. Not many of them knew how to use technology. He set them all up with phones back in the day, and they had access to most social media sights, but the average demon didn’t really understand what it was there for. 

Beelzebub didn’t understand what it meant to hate-follow someone. Back when the traitor first joined social media, they were able to use their Hell Phone to follow him and keep tabs on his progress in securing souls for their master. Dagon no longer had to wait for him to come and turn in paperwork because he would just tweet what he did. It was infernal for mortals to have to see a long string of tweets anyway, so it was fine. 

But then when he kept the world from ending, and had the audacity to not die over it, Beelzebub kept following him. The Prince didn’t understand the well-established phenomena of following someone they couldn’t stand for the sole purpose of being mad at them. With every _ding_ , Beelzebub would check their phone, hoping to see something satisfying about him being miserable. That would give them the satisfaction they craved. It would make up for all his screw-ups. It would fuel them better than black coffee that had been sitting out for three days, or the coffee grounds that had also been sitting out for three days. 

It had been a month. No such post existed. 

Tonight, their Hell Phone went off. Beelzebub picked it up, and saw the notification for the Instant Gram. There was the familiar welling of rage at seeing _his_ name appear on the screen - A.J. Crowley - ridiculous. The demon picked up their phone, tapping it to look. Maybe, just maybe, it would be a bad post. He could have been swallowed by alligators! One could only hope.

They looked and froze. 

It was the opposite of alligators. 

It was…

It was…

No. 

No way. 

No demon would ever-

But he _did._

It was a selfie. One of his blasted, bad-job-award-winning selfies. But it wasn’t just him - someone else was in the photo! So it wasn’t a selfie. Was it a Twofie? That had to be it. It was a twofie with him and an angel! The other one from the failed armageddon, that Gabriel bitched about. Azira-fail. But what they were doing…

Beelzebub was one of the member of the Dark Council. The Right Hand Of Satan. Inspirer of Sins and General from the war with Angels. But even they found this obscene. 

> What kind of twofie was this? And why were they not wearing clothes? Humans usually wore clothes on these things!

There was a caption. Beelzebub squinted to read it. 

_‘My angel and I are on our own side’_

There were comments below - hundreds. All saying a variant of ‘Congratulations!’ ‘So cute’ ‘OMG OTP’ ‘ASDKKJL’ ‘GOALS’ 

Beelzebub didn’t know what half of that meant, but even they could tell they were well-wishes. Disgusting. They could hear the sound of Dagon roaring with anger - she clearly saw it - and they went to their contacts. Selected ‘Tool’ and waited for the dial.

_“This is the Archangel Gabriel”_

“It’zzz me,” They said, “Check your Angel Phone.”

_“Bee-you. Demon.”_

Gabriel was flustered, he always was whenever the demon called, and normally Beelzebub enjoyed being able to inspire such a reaction. But not now. Another flash of annoyance at Crowley flowed through them. _“You shouldn’t have this number! This is not my Office Phone and I am on a Corporate allotted seven minute break.”_

Beelzebub rolled their eyes and said nothing. 

_“Besides, we don’t use Angel Phones anymore. We all upgraded to Celestial A6’s, for the new millenia.”_

Pompous cell phone names were one of theirs, and Heaven appropriated it. As they did everything. But now wasn’t the time for that. 

“Check Instant Gram. I’m sending you something.” 

There was more sputtering, usually because the last time Beelzebub did that Gabriel received the first ever sext in Heaven. But not this time. Just like Dagon, he started cursing up a storm, swearing his anger at Azirafail the traitor. 

\--------

In the heavenly offices, Sandalphon had been in the middle of a really good joke about staplers when Gabriel’s phone went off. He did his best to hide his annoyance when Gabriel answered his phone, but it wasn’t fair. The joke had been five minutes long, and now he was going to have to start all over again or he wouldn’t get the mild mannered chuckle he had been hoping for. The angel leaned over to refill his responsibly sourced refillable water bottle, missing the moment when Gabriel said ‘demon’, because he was too busy remembering how the joke began. Being the funny angel of the office was hard, serious work. 

But then Gabriel looked down at his phone, and started swearing profusely. 

“What is it?” He asked, and watched as Gabriel ended the call. 

“That _mother fucker_!” Gabriel raged, and Sandalphon knew instantly whom he was speaking of. The dreaded principality that no-one-must-speak-of. 

“What has he done now?” Sandalphon asked, annoyed. So much for his joke. Several other angels who had been milling about began to draw closer, intrigued by the spectacle. 

Rather than tell, Gabriel handed his phone over. Sandalphon took it carefully, because he still had the Celestial A5s and didn’t want to break a newer model. His jaw dropped. Uriel, who had come up from behind him, looked over his shoulder and snorted. 

“Talk about a fallen angel,” Sandalphon sneered. Uriel made an ‘ahem’ noise, and his heart sank. He’d bet her half a week’s celestial wages that Aziraphale _didn’t_ have a boyfriend in dark glasses. Now he owed her. 

“I should have known!” Gabriel snarled, “He sullied his celestial body with food - in _public_ which is just obscene _-_ of course he would allow a demon to defile him!” 

“Look at his neck,” Uriel added, “Somehow the demon even turned parts of his neck purple.” 

“Clearly a curse,” Sandalphon remarked. “He’s a snake, probably poisoned him.” 

None of them knew what a hickey was. 

More angels took out their own phones, moving all the closer to the Holy Water Cooler for this gossip. Reception there was the best, which everyone knew. More of them began going to the - what was it? Instagrum? And began peering at the photo in shock. 

Gabriel started to realize how many angels were now not appropriately using their sanctioned work-break. “Back to your offices!” He called out, “Get back to work!” 

Many of them scampered off - some went to their cubicles, but many more seemed to suddenly need to take their paperwork to get a signature elsewhere, conveniently to another office or cubicle where to see an angel who didn’t know the news yet, and went that way. What Gabriel didn’t realize, because he never understood subterfuge, was that none of the angels were going to be getting back to work for a while. This was the most interesting gossip they had since the failed armageddon, and they were going to _enjoy_ themselves. The drama! The intrigue! 

And the messages were all filled with love - so clearly it was appropriate to speculate about at work. It was as if they were ordered divinely to speak of it, obviously. 

\---------

“It’s disgusting,” Hastur sneered, gawking stupidly at his phone, unable to look away from Crowley’s smug face on his screen. “What kind of a demon is he?”

“At least he inflicted bruises,” Ligur pointed out, eyeing the purple marks on the angel’s neck. Was it the respectable level of violence for a servant of Satan? No, but Crowley wasn’t a proper demon and that would have been expecting too much. “Better than nothing.” 

The two were lurking in a cemetery, one of their favorite haunts. They could feel properly evil, which helped compensate for the Hell Phone they were looking at. 

“But what does ‘our own side’ mean?” Hastur said, “There’s only two. Us, and the wankers. That’s it.”

“But they’re not with us,” Ligur reminded him, “We tried to kill him, so he’s not on our side.”

“Yeah,” Hastur _wished_ that they had been able to kill them. It just wasn’t fair. Crowley got to kill Ligur! Of course, he was brought back when the antichrist fixed the world. But where was the justice? 

Hastur was not intelligent enough to realize that _injustice_ was the whole demonic point for them, so the irony went unsaid. 

One of the disposable demons came near. They seemed to like to call themselves Eric, not that Hastur bothered to remember. 

“It’s a play on words for their relationship,” The Eric explained, “Because neither of them can rely on their usual sides. So now they have each other.”

“It’s why so many people are commenting with support for their relationship,” The other disposable demon added, “People love a love story overcoming the odds. It’s a real happy ending.” 

Ligur and Hastur exchanged a glance at each other. 

“Disgusting.” Ligur decided. Hastur nodded, hating that the others put that thought in his head. In retaliation, he set them on fire. 

It was only fair. 

\------

Michael glowered at her phone. She hadn’t been able to look away from the selfie ever since Uriel came into her office. Uriel had needed her signature on some of the triplicate forms, completely professional, and made properly benign small talk to be polite. Only the small talk consisted of showing her the selfie she saw at the Holy Water Cooler, and Michael was furious to see it. 

“It feels smug,” She said, not for the first time, “The hubris makes me feel more committed than ever to serve the light of heaven, with my fellow angels. I can’t believe Aziraphale lost his way for a demon. I really do feel bad for him.” 

Uriel privately thought that she sounded jealous, but nodded anyway. 

“They’re showing off how amazing their lives are because they didn’t die,” Michael sneered. “We get it, they got their precious earth. They ruined everything. But now they have to rub it in?” 

“It’s awful,” Uriel agreed, for the fifth time. But Michael wasn’t done.

“And what’s so great about being in a relationship with a demon anyway?” Michael snapped, starting to pace. “They’re smelly, violent, and they only care about themselves!” 

In Uriel’s opinion, Crowley had always seemed stylish - more than Aziraphale, anyway. But she didn’t think it was wise to say that. 

“They just go around, trying to get souls for Satan, that’s all they care about! And Lurking, they always have to lurk. And spend time with their partner, can’t bother them when they’re with a partner. Stupid animals on their heads. They think they’re so much better than us because they’re more colorful?”

Uriel blinked at her. “Are we still talking about the demon Crowley and Aziraphale?” 

“Of course we are!” Michael yelled, but Uriel doubted it. “Obviously everything that I said is about the demon and angel in the photo! It has nothing at all to do with me and any back channels that heaven has!” 

Heaven didn’t have back channels, but that wasn’t the point. Uriel nodded, trying to focus instead on the photo. Every angel could sense the outpouring of love from each comment. Now there were over ten thousand. It seemed that their ‘relationship’ was rather popular, much to her disgust. Especially because they shouldn’t be able to feel love - demons weren’t supposed to be able to love! That was something they had all known, and Michael had really doubled down on that rule after Armageddon didn’t happen. 

\-----------

Dagon had taken to angry-tweeting about the whole thing. Some of her tweets included: 

_Crowley is a LIAR and a LOSER. Dont support him!_

_Crowley doesnt car abut u!_

_STOP LIKING HIS POST HES A DEMON_

The responses to her tweets had been horrible, which she relished. Sowing internet discord would always be a boost to their side! But too many of her posts had been flagged for ‘hate’, and several campaigns were enacted to take down her account. Crowley had nothing to do with any of them - they were all from mortals! Several weren’t even anywhere near him. Within the hour, her social media accounts had all been deactivated, and she was banned. 

Ridiculous. How could she spread evil now? 

\---------------

Meanwhile, in a flat in Mayfair, a demon had turned his phone over. His selfie had been up for nearly an hour, with an already impressive number of likes and comments. Not that he had really looked, a few minutes after posting, he’d gotten an alert about an interesting recipe being posted, one that a certain angel would probably enjoy. 

Against his bare chest, Aziraphale made a contented noise, and snuggled closer. Crowley placed a kiss against his curls. 

“Your mobile phone is feeling loved,” Aziraphale murmured sleepily. “It’s very nice.” 

In his good mood, Crowley didn’t even begrudge his language. “It’s the selfie of us,” He boasted, referring to the photo he had taken of them earlier, “People liked seeing us together.” 

Aziraphale knew that Crowley enjoyed updating his online profiles, and while he didn’t quite understand how they worked himself, he didn’t see any real harm. He knew that Crowley didn’t fully understand his need to run a bookshop, but they supported each other because they were partners. So if it made Crowley happy to take a photo with them, Aziraphale would let him take a thousand photos. 

The angel opened his eyes, seeming to wake up. Crowley lamented that - Aziraphale looked adorable when he was drowsy. 

“How can it be a selfie if we were both in it? Wouldn’t that be a twofie?”

Crowley groaned. “No, it’s still a selfie, no matter how many people are in it.”

“Then why is it a selfie in the first place?”

“I-you-gl. It’s just what people say, alright? You know how people are.” 

Aziraphale nodded, he did know how people were. “So that delightful photo you took of us, it went onto the internets?” 

“Internet, but yeah. I posted it. Got thousands of likes.” 

Maybe his tone was boasting, but the only point of being verified was to brag about it. Aziraphale smiled. “Oh, thousands of people like you? That makes me very happy to hear.” 

Crowley’s ears didn’t go red. They knew better. “Well, both of us. People like seeing us together.” 

That was news to them - but encouraging news. After spending their lives looking over their shoulders, denying their relationship, and hiding from the world, the idea that so many people would support them so publicly was quite lovely indeed. 

“That’s not even the best part though,” Crowley smirked. 

Aziraphale loved hearing his lover sound so pleased. “What is the best part?”

“My old bosses still follow me, so right now they’re all seeing how happy we are. Don’t you always say the best revenge is a life lived well?” 

Technically, Aziraphale had a cellphone. He had an older Celestial model, his second edition still worked perfectly well, and he had no reason to exchange it. It didn’t have quite the abilities that Crowley’s Hell Phone had, but it did what he needed it to do. So he didn’t fully understand social media, but he had a vague idea of what Crowley was saying and could follow the narrative well enough. For a moment, the demon’s words sank in. 

Shockingly, Aziraphale… didn’t feel anxious. The thought of his old colleagues seeing him in a relationship no longer filled him with insurmountable dread. He was no longer hiding, but rather proudly celebrating his love. And if they saw, well… it just wasn’t his issue anymore. 

A weight he didn’t even realize he carried was lifted off his shoulders, and he gave a little wiggle in delight. “I imagine they’ll be quite frustrated to see us so happy,” He said, grinning at the thought. “How divine.”

Crowley laughed. There was his angel - a right little bastard. He loved him. “Absolutely.” 

Aziraphale settled against his chest once more, and Crowley’s arms wrapped around him. “I only wish I could see it.” 

He didn’t really need to see it, though. For once, he really didn’t care what the others would think when they saw it. There was no urge to check Twitter so see if Dagon replied, or worry that there would be some sort of vague post about either of them. Even if there were, it wouldn’t matter. What the others had to say about them was no longer any of their business. 

Afterall, the best revenge was a life well lived, and like his post said, he and Aziraphale were on their own side.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! If you ever wanna chat, I'm Shay_Moonsilk on Discord, tumblr, twitter, and instagram!


End file.
